Apple’s 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro drops to $1,300 at MacConnection

If you’ve been holding out for a bigger discount on the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display than the one Apple offered in February, you’re in luck. As AppleInsider discovered, MacConnection is suddenly putting its brand-new and in-stock MacBook Pro on sale for $1,300, which is $200 cheaper than if you were to order the same laptop from Apple today.

Just to be clear, the retailer is only offering this steep discount on the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro with a 2.5GHz Intel Core i5 processor and a 128GB solid-state drive. Its similarly sized cousin with with a slightly faster 2.6GHz Core i5 CPU and bigger 256GB SSD is going for $1,650 on MacConnection’s website, which is a mere $50 less than what Apple is charging.

Considering this 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display was just announced announced in October of 2012, it is surprising that Apple and other retailers like Amazon have been slowly but steadily cutting its price since launch. It was originally priced at $1,700, and its price has dropped to $1,300 within five months. While this is great news for frugal shoppers who’ve been eyeing the 13-inch MacBook Pro since last year, early adopters must be smarting at the $400 savings they could have pocketed if only they waited on their purchase.

So why are prices for the well-reviewed Retina MacBook Pros continuing to drop? In AppleInsider‘s opinion, “Increasingly aggressive discounts on Apple’s MacBooks come after the company failed to outgrow the overall PC market for the first time in years during its holiday quarter.” Are consumers no longer buying the more premium priced Pros because the thinner and more affordable MacBook Air is good enough for most users? It’s possible that stores with too many unsold MacBook Pros are just cutting prices to spur sales. In that case, their loss is your gain.